


Illya Goes West

by heroic_pants



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, in between missions, ruminations on capitalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 17:34:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13081821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heroic_pants/pseuds/heroic_pants
Summary: Illya adjusts to his new life, in the vibrant, crowded hub of capitalism otherwise known as New York City, and wonders about the contradictions of the American Dream, and whether he'll ever feel comfortable in this strange new world.There is so much he doesn't understand about this country, and yet it also provides opportunities he would have never thought possible...





	Illya Goes West

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meduseld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meduseld/gifts).



> For Meduseld, kind of a combination of prompts 1 and 3 (i found both intriguing!) hope that you enjoy it, sorry it's late! Happy holiday season :))

 

The thing about deprivation is, sometimes you don’t realise you’re even going without. You live and get along thinking this is what life is – this lack of meat, this sparsely-decorated Soviet apartment. You even learn to accept not having control over your life. That’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s always been.

And even when you become aware how different things are for some, you see it with a kind of contempt. Look at these people, over-indulging in things they don’t need, endlessly consuming more and more, like fat pigs in slop. Maybe you genuinely feel a bit disgusted, maybe it’s a kind of defence. You don’t want what they get so easily here, so you don’t miss it when you go back to where you have little.

But being told you can stay – that you are to live in this different world – that’s a different thing entirely. That’s terrifying.

_Two Months After Istanbul_

Illya always wakes early. It was part of his training, and before that had been part of his childhood routine, and he can’t stop it now just because he isn’t being forced to. It’s just a fact of his personality.

The other two don’t. They love to sleep in, considering waking before nine a.m a great personal expense. He’s not surprised that Napoleon does this, because everything about him is over-indulgent, decadent to an obscene degree. In an ancient time, with the right family, he would’ve been an emperor of a Roman court, lounging around with beautiful scantily-clad servants serving him wine and grapes. America, as he learns day by day – more than he ever could have realised while only seeing it from afar – is surely becoming the modern world’s Rome, for all the good and bad that implies.

With Gaby, it’s a surprise, but then also it isn’t. She’s younger than the both of them, and she’s still young enough and new enough to what they do that she still wants to have fun. She’s enjoying the west, he thinks – the sorts of things she never had access to working in a mechanic’s workshop in East Germany. Sometimes it’s having access to more eggs than usual, sometimes it’s buying new clothes that aren’t second hand, sometimes it’s just that she can sleep in.

He’s gotten into the routine of talking walks in the park near them. Not only does it comfort him to be familiar with routes to and from his base – it’s too foreign to think of as a home, and he can’t remember the last time he did so, maybe not since childhood – but it clears his head.

He can’t deny – though he avoids thinking on it too much – that another reason he likes the walks is to be able to get away from the others when they’re at the apartment. Things are ordered, make sense when he walks. He feels calm and controlled walking the familiar and unfamiliar paths, keeping an eye out for tails, but enjoying the anonymity of it. When he’s around either of _them_ – things don’t make sense. Napoleon is deliberately contrarian, frustrating, a smirking Cheshire cat he’d often like to throw out a window. Or worse. Gaby is both different and the same, constantly challenging him, driving him out of his mind, but he never wants to hurt her. He never wants to see anyone hurt her. He’s strangely fascinated by her, what she’ll do next. Even as he misses the time when he lived without tiny (women – Russian?) girls trying to get him to listen to rock and roll records and interrupting solitary games of chess.

And there was Istanbul.

Well, nothing happened that wasn’t in the mission report. Not really.

He doesn’t know why his mind comes back to it, more than he’d like. Napoleon could never be allowed to be find this out, he would be intolerable. He’s already bad enough to live with, especially with his coming home at all hours when they’re not active. Illya doesn’t know how he can do it so often, the man is a study in gross excess. And yet, he generally looks pulled together, betraying none of that. It’s a mystery.

He gets back to the apartment, and Napoleon’s in the living room, reading. He can’t see Gaby in the kitchen or the living room.

He means to quietly move off to his room, but Napoleon says without looking up, “She’s not here. Should be back this afternoon though, if you need.”

“I do not –“ he starts, somewhat indignantly. “Where is she gone?”

Napoleon looks up with that smile he hates. Like he knows more about you than you do. He wore it on the day they met, and it’s just as irritating now. Well – it’s irritating but it’s now because he knows Napoleon is doing it on purpose, to put him off guard. It’s one of the unfortunate side effects of working with someone you never would have before is that you get to know them – and being frustrated by the behaviour of someone you know, who you’ve been through certain dangerous situations with, is quite different to being irritated by some enemy you’ll never see again if you’re lucky.

“She’s gone to see some jazz musicians playing somewhere in the Village. Sounded like a good time.”

Illya tenses, inadvertently. “She is alone with these – this crowd?”

Napoleon chuckles. “I understand the concern, Peril, and it is touching. But as she proved in Istanbul – and Italy for that matter – she can handle herself. She has to be able to, if she’s going to do what we do.”

Illya finds himself irrationally annoyed again. The nickname has stuck, and he hates it, but some days he doesn’t hate it as much as others. This is not one of those days. “Of course,” he says, curtly. “Why are you not – out watching the jazz? A place like that seems exactly as you like them. Plenty of alcohol and women you like there,” he continues, curious despite himself.

Napoleon smiles and looks down at his book, and then back at Illya. “I know you can’t imagine this, since you never go out for ‘fun’ – I’m assuming, unless your mysterious journeys out are more exciting than I’m picturing – but even I have my limits, and times when I just want to read _Brave New World_ and not be out there mingling.”

Illya didn’t expect a fairly honest answer, especially from someone who always sounds like he’s lying.

“I know, it’s cruel to deprive the people of my presence, but there’s only so much of me to go around.” He says, with a smirk, and a glancing direct look at Illya.

Illya shakes his head, frowning. “And I give thanks there is only so much,” he says, and stalks off. It’s been like that, on and off, since Istanbul. Like he’s figured out a new way to infuriate him, He’s sure Napoleon is doing it deliberately to annoy him.

*

Gaby returns later, kind of giggly, and bumps into him in the kitchen.

“The music was good?” He asks, and internally curses himself. He hadn’t been meaning to ask. Living with people for the first time in a long time is changing the way he thinks about things, and he doesn’t like it. He never used to engage in small talk, but there’s something about her in particular that makes him want to know. And Napoleon tends to chatter about unimportant things, although Illya is convinced this is because he likes the sound of his own voice.

She beams at him. “It’s a whole other world there.” Her smile becomes more mischievous. ”I think you’d like it, if you came.”

He shakes his head. “I would not.”

She looks at him, her face a parody of seriousness. “So serious. When do you have fun?”

He stiffens. “Fun is for children.”

“Illya, come on-“ she calls after him.

He feels like he will never truly fit in here, and maybe nowhere will ever really feel comfortable. Being in service hadn’t, but there had been order there at least. Set times, clear parameters, no grey areas. He might have been on a chain there, but at least he knew what he was, an attack dog. Here, he feels too different, too big, too prudent, often missing the joke.

He hates them for being able to understand this place better. He hates this damn country.

Six months later, they’re recuperating from a particularly difficult mission.

His nightmares about his father, about the past, have decreased – but have been replaced by a recurring nightmare about this mission. The cavern is filling with water, and he can’t get to them in time, he can see them going under. Sometimes he gets to them, pulls heavy bodies to shore but he can’t get them to breathe, just stares into their pale faces and unseeing, glassy eyes.

The walks help. But its always there, in the back of his mind. He hasn’t told them about the dreams. They’re already dealing with their own recovery.

It’s five am, and he’s breathing heavily, sitting against the cool of his bedroom wall. What really haunts him, is that he’s scared. That he was terrified of them dying. That he continues to be.

It’s not how an agent should act. It’s too close. Weaknesses are lethal in this game.

He decides he needs a glass of water.

Unexpectedly, Napoleon is in the kitchen. He is sitting a the table with a glass of scotch, looking unusually morose.

“Early for that, Cowboy?” he tries. He finds himself trying more these days, to start conversations with them like they do him. It’s not so bad actually.

Napoleon looks at him, like he’s trying to find the energy for his usual smirk. “Just a bad dream, Peril. I’m overtired. Should have taken a sleeping pill,” he says casually, though his eyes still look grim. “Is this normally when you get up, because, _Christ_ it is too fucking early to be awake.”

Illya hesitates, sipping the cold water. He wouldn’t have dreamed of doing this when they had first met but now – now he doesn’t know. Perhaps becoming closer with someone you’ve survived various near-death situations with is inevitable. Even if they’re American, and they often make you wonder who cursed you with someone so determined to be different to you, and to torment you with this.

“Yes. But I – too have bad dream,” he says quietly.

Previously, admitting this to him would have been suicide. Opening himself up to take on enemy fire. But previously, Napoleon wouldn’t have admitted to his own, either.

“Do you want something stronger?” Napoleon says carefully, looking at his glass.

“I will stay with the water, thank you,” he says, looking at his own.

A moment passes.

Napoleon speaks up unexpectedly. “Was it about what happened, or...the usual?”

He knows about the other nightmares. Some things you can’t hide when you live in close quarters long enough.

He presses his lips into a line. He so badly wants to talk about it, but he shouldn’t. He was not raised to do so.

“Mine was,” Napoleon admits quietly. “I don’t have nightmares often. I don’t like it. It’s not real, though. Just a clearing house for your fears and anxieties.”

Illya bows his head, looking down. “But it was. Gaby and you suffered, because I was not quick enough. I should have known it was Norton before he got to you.”

“We’ve gone through this – his papers were ingeniously faked. None of us caught it.” Napoleon says seriously. “I’m the grift expert, I should have caught it.”

“Solo, many things are your fault. This is not one.” He says, and Napoleon smirks a little. “I put fellow agents in danger. I should have been better.”

Napoleon stands up, seemingly on the pretext of returning his glass to the sink. He looks at Illya with scrutiny.

“We’re always in danger. You don’t usually beat yourself up this much over it, why is it any different this time? What’s changed since the first time we almost got killed by a psychopath? There will be others –“

“Everything!” he explodes, looking at Napoleon finally. “Gaby – you – are friends. My – own. I could not – lose,” Napoleon’s gone oddly quiet. His throat feels dry again. “I could not lose these friendships.”

Napoleon nods, looks at the refrigerator for a moment, then back. “Illya, you have to know it wasn’t your fault. In fact, you’re probably the reason we’re still here.”

Illya is surprised, again by the honesty. Napoleon is not a sentimental man, and even though they are fine with calling Gaby by her first name, they rarely refer to each other by theirs. It’s too personal, and their relationship still requires mocking each other with nicknames, even though it’s less intended to hurt now. It’s a mark of his rare sincerity, that he’s doing it now.

“I will try – to remember that.” He replies, after a moment.

Napoleon swallows, and looks away, clearly uncomfortable in a sincere momemt.

“I only have two friends anyway, and I do not like meeting people.” Illya deadpans. Napoleon half-laughs, surprised.

“Was that a joke, Peril?”

“I have joked before, Cowboy. Perhaps you missed it?”

***

It’s raining outside, a few hours later. The afternoon finds them all quietly congregated in the living room, no one having wanted to go outside and see jazz musicians or whatever else it is they do.

Gaby moves closer to him on the couch facing the window, snuggling up next to him, and he lets her because he’s weak.

He catches Napoleon’s eye, and Napoleon smirks, not saying anything.

He wonders if Gaby has told Napoleon they kissed. They’ve become pretty close. He wonders if Napoleon is in love with her, and then feels annoyed by the thought. Besides, he never falls in love with anyone, and he seems proud of that.

Kissing her was unprofessional. But he had thought she was dead, that she’d been in the factory when it exploded, and the relief he felt seeing her must have driven him temporarily mad.

He wonders if he wants Napoleon to know. About the kiss or about the worse thing – that he, at least, is in love with her. That feels uncomfortable too.

For some reason, he can’t picture it quite right – he can’t have a relationship with her, for one. He can’t have one also without probably destroying what they have now. The thought makes him strangely sad, but this is as close to stable as his life has been in a long time. It’s delicate though.

She yawns as she’s reading her book, and his heart hurts to look at her.

He looks at the buildings through the window, and thinks the city looks rather nice in the rain.

***

He is starting to enjoy living in this city, when he can. Sort of.

He enjoys his walks. He likes the influx of foreign foods he can usually only get on mission, like delicious kebabs from the shop on East 14th street. He’s getting used to the ridiculous ways Americans name their streets, familiar enough that one particularly brave older couple asked him for direction.

There are more immigrants from Eastern Europe in his neighbourhood than he realised, and thanks to that he found a restaurant that he bought a cup of authentic _borscht_ from on a cold day, and for a while he might have been sitting in a restaurant in Moscow listening to two old men chatter in Russian. He likes that the foods have been brought here by immigrants, looking for some kind of freedom, something better for their children. And this city, or at least, parts of it is brimming with life and liberty. That phrase he had always scoffed at, knowing they weren’t truly free when he was still working in Russia. But amongst it, he has to admit, he understands it. He doesn’t understand it all, the way some people dress, or act – but they are fearlessly, doggedly free.

He’s used to crowds, but they’re different in this country. Maybe its this city’s influence, but they’re brasher, louder, more impatient. So many different people, pushed up against each other. All wanting different things, co-existing in rapid, dizzying motion alongside each other. It makes him uncomfortable sometimes, and he returns to the apartment hoping he won’t have to venture out into all the noise for a while.

And he feels sickened sometimes to see the decadence of this country, the overdone department stores on Fifth Avenue with their over-indulgent shop windows, a clarion call to capitalism. People spending what they can’t afford, free-flowing into the bank accounts and pockets of fat men with thin wives. He doesn’t spend much time in the parts of the city where they live, because it disgusts him, but sometimes he sees them. Mismatched, a parody of a romantic union. A western business deal, desperate scrambles to keep the money in the right hands. Never in the hands of the people building and thriving and working within the city.

He doesn’t like that about this city, how there are so many people that live as they have in their old countries, or worse. In cramped apartments, in squalid tenements. Working themselves to the bone, while a few blocks uptown people live like kings and queens in Versailles.

How can America think it is so enlightened? It is a privilege of ignoring everyone they are stepping over in their greed, segregating races and calling it progress, as long as they can drink at the better water fountain.

***

Somehow, he’s allowed Gaby to drag him out to one of these clubs she’s always talking about.

“I really do think you’ll like it,” she grins as they wait for their stop on the subway.

“Not too late, Gaby.” He replies, frowning.

She just grins again, a little evilly.

“Certainly.”

*

The club is crowded, but it doesn’t stress him out as much as he thought. He can’t help keeping an eye on the exits, though.

She is really in her place here, chatting to friends he didn’t know she had, easily lying about what they do, keeping up with the conversation like he can’t (in a way that is nothing to with mistranslation). He tries to ignore the various men looking at her admiringly, knowing she hates it when anyone treats her like she’s “owned”. He can’t help glaring at some though, who immediately quaver. A glare from a seven foot Russian with a scar will do that to you.

Despite himself, he enjoys the musicians, even though it’s not the kind of music he listens to.

She looks beautiful.

He wonders if she’ll leave them, try on some  other life, another scene. He can’t see it. She fits into their scene. She has become irreplaceable on missions.

And, of course, he loves her. And he hasn’t told her, but he thinks she might already know.

*

They’re walking back from the subway, a little drunker than intended, when she asks him.

He had stopped to pull a leaf off her hair, and she looks up at him and says, “What are we, to each other?”

He is caught off guard, but can’t stop looking at her. “We are – we are friends,” he stumbles over the words.

She raises an eyebrow. “Friends like you and Napoleon? Friends like Napoleon and I?”

“Yes. No. I do not –“ He rebuts, panicked, unsure why he cant say the right thing. “I do not understand –“

She looks up at him, tiny but defiantly mad. “I don’t understand why you kissed me! And then you never said anything about it to me!”

“I – I –“ he tries to lie but quavers under the force of her anger. “It is not appropriate. We work together.”

She scowls at him. “Stop caring so much about appropriate! What do you _want,_ Illya?”

“I don’t know!” he bursts out. “I love you! What if you get hurt?”

He can tell he’s had too much to drink, if he’s just blurted that out after keeping it hidden for so long.

She looks up him, beckoning for him to lean down. He does, automatically, so she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him. He doesn’t stop it. In spite of his fears he kisses her back.

Breaking apart, still close, she says quietly, “You can’t stop me from getting hurt, Illya. I do what you do. Would you worry about Napoleon?”

He wants to say no, but he knows she will be able to tell he’s lying. “As much as he – makes me feel like insane person sometimes – a lot of the time,” she grins. “I would worry. But it’s different –“

Her eyes flash. “Because he has a penis?” she replies sharply.

He sighs, and when he fails to rebut this, she pulls away. “I thought I could trust you – how many fucking times must I prove myself to men? How many more times should I save your life? Or his?”

She storms off and he runs after, finally getting her to stop, as they enter the apartment building. It’s pretty quiet, even with muffled street noise. No one in sight. “Gaby, Gaby, don’t run. I am sorry. I made mistake – you are invaluable, and able to handle yourself fine.” He looks at her sadly. “But what if I make another mistake like in Prague? What if I get you killed?”

She looks at him sadly, without saying anything, and then speaks. “That is the job. We are always risking that, Illya. But what we have here – all of us – is good. It’s worth doing the job, if we have this.”

He kisses her again. Breaking apart, something occurs to him. “What do you mean, all of us?”

She gives him an unconvinced look. “You know what I mean.”

He freezes, confused but dreading whatever she’s about to say next. “I honestly do not.”

She puts hand on his arm, very tenderly.

“Our lives – our world is transient, terrifying, unstable. People die. We risk big things. We’re not normal people.”

He doesn’t say anything, unsure of what she means, but feeling like it can’t be good.

“None of us were anyway. We’re certainly not now. We don’t have to pretend to be them. We don’t have to live our lives like them.” She says, slowly and carefully.

“Do you not want to be with me? Do you not love me?” he asks, feeling bewildered and afraid because of it.

She puts both her hand on his arms and looks at him intensely. “I love you so much! I want to be with you for as long as we’ve got!”

She takes a breath. “But I want you to be able to be honest with me. If we can’t trust each other out there, we really are dead...I think you care more than you admit about him. You love me, but you also love him.”

He feels his stomach drop and he wrenches back. “You are – that is wrong! I love _you!”_

She shakes her head. “No it’s not – and I believe you can love two people. I’m not mad about it, he’s my friend! I care about him deeply.”

The drink, and the shock make him react nastily. “Do you love him, then?”

She looks shocked. “I’m – “ she tries. Then she juts her chin out defiantly. “Maybe.”

His hurt and confusion build up into a nastier retort. “My, how you have taken to this country, Gaby! Why bother choosing, when you can just have everything? You are just like greedy, spoiled child of this country!”

He doesn’t see her slap coming, but he probably should have, given how much shorter she is.

“This is about you, don’t forget that,” she says frostily, and walks off.

He doesn’t follow her.

He just stands there, feeling sick.

*

He doesn’t see Napoleon or Gaby for another week, until there’s a knock on the door of the cheap hostel room he rented so he wouldn’t have to see them again. He hadn’t thought of a long term plan.

“What in the fucking _world_ are you doing here, Peril?”

He slams the door.

“Frankly, I’m offended you still think shutting this door will keep me out,” Napoleon calls, sounding unimpressed. “You know I can get in easily, I have my picks – but it’ll be much easier for you and this fine establishment if you just –“

He opens the door, glowering, and Napoleon’s resultant smirk almost makes him want to slam the door again. But he stands aside to let him in, giving him a wide berth after he shuts the door behind him.

“Now, I know we’ve had our differences,” he says, looking around with slight distaste at the threadbare, somewhat dirty room. “But you used to at least give me an indication of what I’d done to irritate you so much in the past.” He finishes, looking at Illya quizzically.

“Come on, you still don’t trust me? The last time I saw you, a week ago, you were happy. Then you disappeared into the night, and I haven’t seen you since.” Napoleon continues.

“How did you find me?” He asks eventually.

Napoleon gives him a very unimpressed look. “Give me some credit, Peril. I do this for a living, in case you forgot.”

He nods, but doesn’t say anything more. All he wishes is that he’d never gone out that night, never told her how he felt, never let her say that to him. Because now he can’t stop thinking about it, and it’s cruel. He’s thought of the both of them everyday he’s stayed in this shithole. The worst thing in the world is to get cosy and drop your guard, because that is when they kick you. And you remember the ground is your home. But before it was all you knew, and now all you can think of is the time when you stupidly allowed yourself to get cosy. This was never his home.

“Was it something between you and Gaby? Did you fight that night?” He asks, seriously.

He feels a spark of fear in his gut. “What did she tell you?” he spits out, and Napoleon looks at him, scrutinisingly.

“I know how you feel about her. So I find it extremely hard to believe you wilfully hurt her, but she is very upset. Tell me what happened. I need to know if I can salvage this thing.” Napoleon says, with a hint of urgency.

“We were fucking kidding ourselves, Solo,” he says bitterly. “Insane idea. Just waiting for explosion.”

“I don’t believe that. We work well together! It’s important!” Napoleon says hotly. “I haven’t seen you this morose since the first time I met you, Jesus.”

“Why are you so responsible now, then?  Usually, you are off seeing how much you can drink and how many people you can bed, it would have been nice to meet this side of you earlier!” He says, angrily. He’s not even angry at him, but in another way, this is all his fault so he deserves it.

Napoleon looks taken aback, still angry. “Well someone has to, if you’re going to go run off to this shithole without telling anyone like a scared child! How could I forget this side of you, I used to think “being a cock” was just the only one that existed!”

Illya dives at him, enraged. Napoleon yells, surprised at being knocked over and begins punching at him. Illya returns the punches, but they don’t land.

Suddenly, Napoleon gets the upper hand and pins him, sitting on him in the most uncomfortable way. “What the fuck is going on with you?” He yells, wilder than his usual polished façade with strands of his slicked back hair falling into his face.

“Let me go!” he yells.

“Are you going to stop trying to kill me?” he asks, breathing heavily. Illya has rarely been more uncomfortable. He wants to shrink down to the size of a bug, he feels too big and clumsy and close.

He makes the mistake of catching Napoleon’s gaze, and no one says anything for the longest moment of Illya’s life. Then he looks away.

He nods, without looking at Napoleon, and stops struggling.

Napoleon, thankfully, gets off him.

“Can you tell me _something_ , Peril?” he says, sounding exhausted.

Illya breathes, not looking at him. “I cannot.” He pauses, and sighs and it sounds ragged, like an old man. “You were right. I am – scared.”

Napoleon gets up. “I can’t believe you just admitted I was right about something. You must be scared.”

He coughs out a laugh, too bitter to sound happy.

“Right then. I’m pouring us some of the cheap scotch you’ve got, because you clearly hate yourself and me, and we’re going to fucking talk about this. Takes a damn lot to scare you.” Napoleon says, matter-of-factly.

*

It takes a drink or two, just talking about things, before he feels ready to explain the worst stuff.

“I hurt her. I have no excuse. How can I look her in the eye?” He says miserably.

“You know, I’m not an expert on conventional relationships, but I think she might appreciate if you just talked to her. She was very worried when you didn’t come back.” Napoleon says, wisely.

“It was bad. Even if she does forgive me, It will never be the same.” He says darkly, to his scotch.

“What did you say, exactly? Maybe I can help. I have talked myself out of some pretty bad spots before. I once convinced a mother that I was a priest when I was caught sneaking out of my date’s room. And she was a royal, not saying who.” Napoleon tries, lightly.

Illya looks at him for a moment, and can’t find the words. He feels emotionally shaken out, exhausted, laid out to dry.

Napoleon doesn’t break eye contact, a strange, careful, soft look on his face. He moves his hand onto Illya’s and for a moment it feels nice. Comforting. Then he breaks out of his exhausted stupor with a start, jumping back, a gigantic spike of fear ripping through his gut.

“What are you doing?” he says, furiously jumping up and away from him.

“Illya, just –“ Napoleon protests, looking shocked.

“She talked to you! I’m not – she is wrong!” he says, bordering on hysteria.

Napoleon gets up too, and he moves back instinctively.

“Oh will you just ADMIT IT! I know what she told you! Of course she told me, I’m the only friend she has right now apparently!” Napoleon cries, looking just as frustrated.

“Well I do not know for you, _Cowboy_ , but I am not like that –“ he begins, furiously.

He’s cut off by Napoleon’s mocking laugh. “That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve heard in a while, _Peril,_ and I used to work for U.S. intelligence!” He sighs, angrily. “It doesn’t fucking matter, you know. You can like both, I’m living proof! I don’t care that you know that now. It doesn’t matter. I’ve been waiting for you to admit it since Istanbul!”

Illya is taken aback, that he would throw that out there. “Nothing happened in Istanbul! You are insane!”

Napoleon laughs again, more tired than mocking. “ _Something_ did. Or you wouldn’t be so worried!” He looks at him, doggedly pursuing the point. “I didn’t know how to think about it, so I never mentioned it. But I know you felt it, that last night we there, after it was over. We were watching the sun rise over the harbour, the only people in that café – they were so grateful we stopped that bomb they brought us out wine and cake, at five am – and we were looking around, and we just started laughing. We’d survived again, together. I knew then, and I spent a long time trying to forget – I was fucked. I’d follow you both anywhere. It was easier to pretend I’d never realised that, be my usual self, then ever tell you. I barely knew you both.”

Napoleon sighs, and shakes himself a little. “And _fuck you_ for making me talk about my feelings, Illya. I’m not good at it, and I hate things I’m not good at.”

Illya is again, speechless. The memory has gutted him. He pretended it wasn’t anything, but sure as anything – in that moment he had felt so close to them. Like a strange new family he’d never asked for, made up of infuriating, vibrant, frustrating, beautiful people.

“Everything –“ he gets out, dry mouthed. “That I care about – anyone like family, or friends – has always been ripped away from me. I could not bear for the way we live, and work, to be destroyed by my selfish feelings. If I want too much, soon everything is taken for that pride.”

Napoleon attempts a smirk, but it’s weak, plainly too interested in what Illya’s saying.

“So you ripped it from yourself so it wouldn’t be ripped away from you? You realise that’s completely insane?”

Illya chuckles dryly, in spite of himself. “I know. But being honest, I am not the sanest man you know. I make rash decisions.”

Napoleon looks at him funny, shaking his head. “Well, Illya, so do I.” They’re not so far away now, is what goes through Illya’s mind before Napoleon surges forward and kisses him.

Then he can’t think. When he can mentally form words again, he is mildly surprised to realise he kissed him back. And that this should inspire so much fear he should be booking a plane across the country to escape – but it isn’t. It feels exactly like and nothing like when he kissed Gaby. Facially, they’re different and Gaby’s lips are softer – Napoleon’s are surprisingly soft, though, why is he even surprised – and he doesn’t have to lean down as much, but really, he feels the same excitement at kissing one as he does the other.

His secret fear – one he couldn’t even admit to himself – was that if he ever did kiss them both, his attraction to one would prove the other to just be lies or bad urges, and in doing so would destroy his relationships with both, leaving him alone again.

Neither of them say anything. He sighs, but his chest feels lighter it has in a week. Maybe more.

“What _now_ , Illya?” Napoleon teases, tired but happy looking.

He looks at Napoleon. Can’t stop looking now. “What am I going to do about this? I cannot - stand the thought of losing one of you. Not now. I – do not know how, since you constantly make – “drive me up the bloody wall” as Waverly says,” he puts it, and Napoleon smirks, like it’s an honour. “And I do not know when – but I think – I must love you too, Napoleon?”

Napoleon’s face works to prevent some strong emotion showing, and he settles into his usual smirk. It’s much fonder than usual though.

“And I could take it or leave it, eh,” he says casually, and Illya punches him in the arm.

“Ow!” he says, rubbing his arm and still smirking. “Ok, I love you too. Happy, you bully?” he says with absolutely no malice, smiling widely.

“Very,” Illya smirks.

Then he thinks again. “No, we still have not worked it out! I cannot have you leave, and I will not see Gaby go. She is – such a good person! And I have to apologise to her! She was trying to help me, and I was so awful to her! She is –“ he spins out.

Napoleon grabs his arm. “Calm down, Illya. You should apologise to her, definitely, but I think she’ll forgive you. And no-one has to leave, ok? The neighbours who care know the story we’ve leaked for why we live together. We know we work best as team.”

Illya stops freaking out a little. “If we are careful, smart about it, it could...It is unorthodox, but this whole country is...”

Napoleon laughs. “Gaby and I talked about it, while you’ve been gone. Seems we came to the same conclusion.”

Illya smiles, thinking of her. “She is clever.”

Napoleon looks down. “She really is something, that girl.” He looks up, looking surprisingly as unsure as he’s ever seen him. “I might be in love with her. Or something. I’m kind of new to this business.”

Illya can’t help the old insecurity slipping out. “Hey!”

Napoleon laughs, bemusedly. “Seriously? She’s only your girl? The whole point is _not_ to exclude, Peril,”

He genuinely doesn’t mind, thinking about it, but he milks it “Yeah, well I am not sure I trust you around her, Cowboy, with your ways,” he jokes.

Napoleon mimes mock offense. “But around you, you’re not worried. I’m mightily offended.”

He grins. Something occurs to him, and he wonders how to put it nicely. He looks Napoleon in the eye.

“You know this – thing, if we do it, closes a lot of doors for you. I do not think either of us would want you – to walk through other doors. Only ours. Does that – does it make sense?” he says, slowly to Napoleon’s general bemusement.

He squints, faking confusion, then nods. “I’m not very good at these things, just a warning. But given you’re two of maybe three people in the world that actually like me, I’m thinking I can give that up for you.”

Illya chuckles. “I guess we should go home now.”

Napoleon brightens even more suddenly, grinning. “I never thought I’d see the day when you called my country home. Amazing.”

Illya rolls his eyes. “I am disgusted with myself, obviously.”

Today, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

*

Walking in to their apartment to see an anxious Gaby is terrible, and she probably deserves to slap him again. But she doesn’t.

He apologises to her, and explains the day’s events. She shares a conspiratorial smile with Napoleon, and he feels it again, same as Istanbul. He would follow these people anywhere.

_One Year Later_

He wakes early, but wonders whether to leave the bed. He feels warm, and sleepy. Plus there’s the fact that he’s in the middle, and will risk waking two people who are not early risers. They’re more civil to evil psychopaths actively trying to murder them than someone waking them when they don’t want to be awake.

He decides not to chance it, and settles back in next to them. Technically, they all have their old rooms, but they rarely use them for sleeping. Only really if one of them needs space.

Space is important to Illya. But he’s realising he actually doesn’t mind having little space, if he’s next to the two people he loves.

He gets a small shiver, thinking about it. There are times when he thinks he shouldn’t have made them such vulnerable points to him, occasionally has nightmares that some old enemy finds this out, hurts them, kills them. But now, there’s always at least one, or two, people there to comfort him back to an easier sleep.

He looks at Gaby, asleep next to him, and thinks about the way she scrunches her nose sometimes in her sleep. It’s such an odd movement, but he loves it.

“Stop thinking so loud,” Napoleon whispers into his neck, sounding half-asleep. “Mmngh, go sleep now...”

He smiles, and closes his eyes. “Sleeping now.”

America is an odd country. He never dreamed he’d call it home. But he never also dreamed that it would allow this, even privately, and for that he appreciates it more than anywhere. He finally feels at home, a piece that fits snugly in place.

What was that line he used to find ridiculous – _life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness._ Yes, something like that.

THE END


End file.
